


Dream

by Carrogath



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 05:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10632810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrogath/pseuds/Carrogath
Summary: Widowmaker has one last kill to make.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Buttons for beta-reading.

For the first time in a long time, she felt cold. Perhaps it was more the memory of it than the physical sensation itself, that distinct feeling of discomfort—mint on her tongue, goosebumps raised on her flesh—but she felt it prickle her skin, contract her muscles, settle within the hollows of her body. White plastic against black metal in her pockets. She ran her fingers along them, first the plastic, then the metal, and found that they were cold too. She was a nothing in this hotel room—walls painted off-white, dark green carpet, gray striped linen bedsheets, nightstand, armchair, mounted TV, dresser, hotel phone, directory, room service menu, two empty glasses, two instant coffee packets, two bags of tea, tray, ice bucket, desk, stool, lamp. Closet. Bathroom. Full-length mirror. Overhead lighting. Rain outside. It fell in splatters against the window, loud and unrelenting, the rest of the landscape lifeless, urban, and nondescript. She curled herself up in the space between the bed and the window, one hand fingering the trigger of the gun in her pocket. She pictured herself shooting herself in the mouth in the bathtub, and letting the water mix with her blood and brain matter and swirl down the drain. She could have done this on her own.

Time seemed to still. Talon would be looking for her by now, surely. Her memories were indistinct; she remembered doing things to get here, but looking back, she felt as though she were more an observer of those actions than an agent of them. She wasn’t hungry or thirsty; she had a headache, but she could tolerate the pain. The room was twenty stories up and she imagined crawling out the window and dangling from the ledge when Angela walked in, an ultimatum. The gun weighed down her pocket. She could wait hours in the rain for a hit, but now she felt impatient. She had to wait to kill herself, because she needed a witness. Something like that. She wondered what she would do when she walked in, draw the gun on Angela, or draw it on herself. Angela wouldn’t kill her, even if she begged for it. She would take her back to Overwatch, maybe. She didn’t know what they would do with her then.

The wait dragged on. Walls still white. Carpet still green. Rain still falling in fat splatters outside, ceaseless and irregular. The temptation to end it brought her finger around the trigger, for the satisfying crack of a gunshot, and now she didn’t know whether she wanted Angela to die first or herself; she wouldn’t have time to react if she pulled it on her at the door, shot her in the head, and then herself. The thought made her mouth water, sent a jolt of arousal between her thighs.

_My God, why._

She could distinguish little between feeling cold, and feeling numb. Her thumb stroked the muzzle of the gun. Quick. Clean. Sure. She squirmed in the corner of the hotel room, beside the window as though she suspected someone were trying to snipe her from some ways out, were staring at the window through the rifle’s scope. She chewed her lip. She hugged herself. Her nails dug into her shoulders. The wait was agonizing, and anxiety thrilled up and down her spine and set her heart beating faster than it should have (granted it wasn’t even close to a normal rate).

Boredom set in after a while, followed by drowsiness. Stiffness in her knees and shoulders. Dancers weren’t cut out for this. The rain began to die down. There was a clock on the nightstand that she had purposely turned toward the wall. Glancing at it would have only made time move slower. Her eyes flickered toward it anyway; seconds passed with the falling rain, with the weather. As a sniper, she ought to have been good at waiting, but all she could do was replay the scenes in her head, what she would do when Angela walked in. She would shoot.

The door opened.

She moved on reflex, pinning Angela to the wall by her arm and looking at her, examining her face, eyes first—it was Angela, as far as she could see, blonde and blue-eyed and thirty-something—and she looked startled. Amélie—Widowmaker?—Amélie—someone, whoever, ran her hand down Angela’s arm and wrung the briefcase from it and let it drop to the floor, wrapped another hand around her neck, and Angela put her hands around hers, tugging, feebly, without any real intent to remove them, and she said, “Amélie?” but there was no real surprise in her voice (though there was terror in her eyes), so she tightened her grip, and Angela’s grip tightened on her hand, because she was starting to choke, and Amélie remembered the gun in her pocket. She pulled it out with her free hand and pressed it against Angela’s head, still pinning her to the wall by her neck. Angela’s nails left dark streaks across her skin. If she hesitated now Angela would run and call the police. Then what? Angela kicked at her legs. Then she could kill herself before that happened, at least. “Amélie, please, let me go.” Angela struggled in her grasp, against the gun to her head, against the knee pressed into her thigh, helpless. If she pulled the trigger now, then everyone would know. If she let go, then Angela would run.

“Don’t run.”

Angela stared back as she loosened her grip, and then jerked back against the wall as Amélie jammed the gun to her head again.

“Do not run.”

Her face screwed up in pain. “Amélie, please.”

“Stop begging.”

With a sudden burst of strength, Angela wrenched her neck free and drove a fist into Amélie’s stomach. She didn’t react. Angela bolted for the door and she grabbed her, closing her hand around Angela’s mouth and pinning her to the ground before she could scream for help. Angela made muffled noises while Amélie brought the full brunt of her weight against her—emaciated now, probably closer than it had ever been to Angela’s own—and spoke. “Can we talk?”

Her jaw worked to form an incomprehensible response, and then she nodded.

“You’re going to scream,” said Widowmaker, and Angela shook her head. “You’re scared. You think I’m going to kill you. You’re going to draw everyone’s attention and they’re going to call the police and then you know what I’m going to do?”

She could feel Angela’s breaths come short underneath her, and something like a sob escaped her mouth. Pitiful. She drove an elbow into her side, under the ribs, to stop her squirming underneath. “Do you know, Angela?”

“Amélie,” she mumbled.

The gun was still in her hand, and she pressed it to Angela’s temple. “I wasn’t sent here by Talon. I’m… probably going to kill myself afterward. After this. I… thought about it, and I don’t want to kill you—I wanted to see you, actually—but you wouldn’t…” Her hand shook, knocking the gun against Angela’s skull. “You probably think I’m…” She tilted the gun downward, toward the floor. Then she pushed herself upright off of Angela. “Brainwashed,” she spat. “You probably think I’m brainwashed.” She pocketed the gun. Then she felt the plastic card in her pocket, and she remembered.

“You were expecting me.”

It took Angela a few minutes to respond. She remained flat on her stomach, and her face was streaked with tears.

“In a sense,” she whispered. “Do you remember why we arranged this meeting?”

“I came here to see you.” Amélie pulled out the gun and stared at it. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what happens now that I’ve done that.” She dropped the gun. Angela watched it clatter to the ground beside her. “Well?”

She pushed herself onto her knees and then stood up, ignoring the weapon on the floor. Then she hugged herself, exhaled with a shudder, and laughed. “You don’t remember, do you?” she asked, sniffling. “We had a plan.”

Her head throbbed. Did they? “I don’t.”

“Amazing that you came here of your own accord then.” Amélie stared at the gun on the floor. “Nobody knew if you were going to do it. Ah, _Scheisse_ …” She massaged her temples, and muttered to herself in German. “Unbelievable. You know,” she said, walking over to the armchair, “I’ve thought about this before,” she fell backwards into it, “about what I’d do if I had you in front of me, but I… Now that you’re here, I…” She covered her eyes and sighed. “I don’t know.”

“You’ll take me back to Overwatch.”

“I’ve considered it. But then we’ll have to defend you in court or hide you away in some remote area so Talon doesn’t find you and steal you back and I—the surgeries, you’ll need surgery. I’ll have to contact Oasis—I don’t even know who over there was involved with you—with Talon. I don’t know who to avoid. I’ll need a team. I’ll need…” She rubbed her eyes and pulled out her phone. Amélie stared at it. “Hold on.”

“Wait.” Amélie was halfway across the room and gripping Angela’s wrist before she could think.

Angela looked at her. “What?”

“You’re not calling them?”

“Isn’t that why you’re…” Amélie’s grip tightened. Angela winced as she struggled against her. “I can’t help you if I don’t—”

“Don’t.”

“Isn’t Talon looking for you right now? We don’t have much time.”

“Angela, I can’t.”

She looked at her phone. “If I say I won’t do it, will you let go?”

“Liar.”

She grinned. “Well, you remember that much at least.” She dropped the phone onto the ground, and Amélie swept it up in her other hand. She let go, leaving red marks on her wrist.

Angela massaged her wrist. “You have to let me do something.”

Amélie slipped the phone into her pocket and walked back to pick up the gun. She held it to her temple, and then heard a rustle and her arm twisted around itself until pain lanced up her shoulder. She dropped it.

“Are you insane?” hissed Angela. “Stop…” She heard a clack. Angela’s shoe against the gun, perhaps? “Just stop. Calm down.”

“We don’t have any time.”

“I didn’t wait this long to watch you die!” She let go of her arm, and took a step back and picked up the gun. “Look. We have to get you help—”

“I don’t _want_ any help.”

“Then what am I doing here? You…” She looked at the ground, creasing her brow. “You have to let me help. You didn’t escape just to get dragged back to—”

“What?” she asked. “To Overwatch? You can’t guarantee that anything good will come out of it. Why should I take that chance?”

“It’s better than Talon!”

She clenched her teeth. “And then what? You plan to fix me. You want to put me under the knife, to ruin my body again,” she stared at her hands, they were blue, “and what else?” She laughed. “Send me to therapy? You expect to, to teach me how to be happy again? You’ll think you’ll be any better for me than Talon’s doctors? Because you know what’s best for me? Because you love me?”

Angela’s eyes widened. She looked as though she’d been physically struck. “I…” She looked away, ashamed. “No. No, not at all…”

“No, what?” said Amélie, looming over her. “You don’t love me? You don’t know what’s best for me? You don’t think you’re any better than they are? I’m not a broken piece of furniture, Angela,” she hissed, gripping her shoulders, “you can’t just glue me fucking back together. You and your damn pride,” she pressed their foreheads together, “your compassion, your fucking genius—all excuses. It doesn’t matter to me how much you know—you could see into the fucking future for all I care—it does not give you the right to me.” She shoved her away and Angela stumbled a good meter or two before regaining her balance. She could see the pity in her eyes.

“You don’t…”

“Understand?” said Amélie. “You just want to help? Am I going to end up like your friends? Like Genji and Reaper?”

“That wasn’t my—”

“Intention? Call them, then.” She took the phone out of her pocket and held it up. Angela stared. “Call Overwatch. Then I’ll be put in the hospital with one of those—they won’t even give me string because they’ll think I’ll use it to hang myself—and you think this is better than Talon? Boredom and pity? Therapy? I never asked for any of this!” She flung the phone against the wall. It hit the surface with a crack, then fell to the ground with a clatter. “And you think all that effort is worth something, when all it does is serve your massive ego.” Her chest heaved. “Stop acting like this has anything to do with me when you know you’re only doing it to feel better about yourself.”

“That…” Angela turned away and massaged her temples. “I am doing it for you. I’m giving you another chance,” she said, looking at her. “A chance at a better life. A chance at happiness. I know you don’t want my pity, but I’m offering you more than just that.”

“I have my pride, and so long as I have self-awareness, I have a choice. I don’t need anything else.”

“You do have a choice,” said Angela. “And I’m sorry that you feel that way.” She pursed her lips. “But I don’t want you to think this is the only choice you have.” She hesitated, and then stepped forward. “So… We can wait until Talon comes to take you back, or I can call Overwatch, or you can shoot yourself in the head like you’d planned and it’ll be all over.”

Amélie stared at her.

She held the gun out, and Amélie took it from her and stared at it. Then she looked at Angela again. She wondered if Angela knew, somehow, if she had done something with the phone in advance without having to call and Overwatch were coming to pick them up now and Amélie were simply unaware of the preparations, if Angela had managed to pull the wool over her eyes and had planned for this all along. If she shot her, would that make a difference? If she shot her, would that improve things?

She looked at the gun, and then brought it up so that her arm was straight, and pressed the muzzle against Angela’s forehead. She went even paler than usual, and her blue eyes were stark against her skin. “I wonder if you think this is my conditioning,” said Amélie. “If you think I want to kill you because Talon wants me to kill you.”

“I…” She swallowed. “I could think of a number of reasons why.”

“Are any of my thoughts my own? Can you tell me that, doctor?”

“That’s more a philosophical question than a—”

She wound her arm back and jammed the muzzle against her forehead. “How much of this do you think was planned in advance?” Her arm trembled. “Do you think it was fate? If you’re as knowledgeable as you claim then can you tell me why this is happening to me? Did I deserve it?”

Angela stared back, silent.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Tears began to fall from her eyes.

“This is part of my conditioning too, isn’t it!” She threw the gun aside, and it landed on the floor. “I’m just a tool. A machine! A Talon invention used to kill! I’m no better than the gun I can’t even fucking use on you.” She sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands. “If I can’t even do what I was fucking made for, I…” Tears blurred her vision. “I can’t kill you, I can’t kill myself.” She doubled over, supporting herself with her hands. “I can’t do anything. I’m useless.” She laughed, louder and louder, hysterical. “I’m useless! I’m useless!” She stood up and grabbed Angela by the collar. “It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything, don’t you see?” Angela wouldn’t look at her. She shook her violently, and her body moved like a ragdoll. “I’m—I can’t do it—so it didn’t work. It didn’t work!” She laughed in delight. “I didn’t kill you, Angela. I don’t want to kill you! I want you to live.” She shrugged her again. Angela pressed a hand into her shoulder, pushing them apart. “I— _I_ —I want you to live. I love you.”

“Amélie…”

Amélie grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away so she could look at her. “I… I-I-I…” She looked down, perplexed. “No.” She let go. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why… Does that mean it’s… Is it real? Did they just trick me?” She covered her mouth. “Into thinking I had no choice? Could I have… All along, could I have…”

“Amélie,” Angela said again.

“Am I just… That doesn’t make sense.” She clutched her head. “I did it to survive. They would have…” She looked at Angela, and then turned away from her, massaging her temples. “I thought that if I just survived long enough, then I would…” She turned around and stared at her. Her cheeks felt warm. Wet. She stumbled onto the bed and forced herself to sit upright.

The plastic card. The plan. She wanted this. She’d asked for it. The only reason she’d been able to get in was because Sombra had made the card for her, for this particular room, for this particular day, so she could ask Angela to help her escape.

She sank her head into her knees and wept, and she moaned as Angela held her, the heat like licks of flame against her skin. “Enough,” she said, “enough. _Ça suffit_!”

 

* * *

 

“Angela,” she said, after a while.

She imagined that hugging her must have been like hugging a corpse, cold and clammy and lifeless, her pulse an incessant dirge. She thought of old encounters, of nights spent suffocating, sweltering, unending, insatiable, of promises never kept and idle fancies whispered in the dark. _Dump the ring. Leave Gérard. Stay with me_ , as if to say, _you know whom you love more, and it was never him_. Angela, who never failed to be unreliable, who missed appointments, who was too busy saving lives, wasn’t far removed from Gérard, who was also often too busy with his work to see her, only after meeting her she saw two of them instead of merely one, so if she couldn’t see one she met with the other, and that was how she kept from being lonely, one or the other, interchangeable, married or not, together or apart. They talked about arranging a meeting. About discussing matters earnestly between them. To see if anything could be done, if everyone could be happy. It never happened, but it was the last thing she remembered, discussing the meeting with Angela, and back then she’d been so eager to please, nothing but swears and promises.

She still was, it seemed. She untangled herself from Angela’s arms and turned around. She looked dazed.

“I…” said Angela. “Does it bother you? The fact that I’m still in love with you?”

“I wouldn’t trust you to operate on me, if that’s what you’re asking. Isn’t that unethical?”

She spluttered a laugh. “As if anything that’s been done to you in the past decade has been ethical. You’re right,” she said. “It’s difficult enough to operate on strangers. On family, on friends, on lovers…” She curled up on the bed. “I’ve had all these grandiose fantasies of rescuing you—of healing you, making you better. And not just for my own sake. You know that. You might not become able to be the person you once were, but there’s a future for you outside of Talon. I…” She looked away and blinked. “I wouldn’t be the one operating on you, anyway.”

“Then who?”

“I’m a world-renowned doctor,” she said, looking at her. “I have connections.”

“What will I do in the meantime?” she asked. “Sit? Wait? Be a patient in a hospital because I’m sick? Because I need help? Because I can’t be trusted to do anything on my own?”

Angela looked away. “We don’t intend to keep you there forever, Amélie.”

“So either I die, or I leave feeling better than before. What are the odds,” she scoffed, “that one might happen before the other?”

“We’ll try,” she said.

“At least you aren’t certain you’ll succeed.” She stood up off the bed, and looked out the window. It had stopped raining. “It sounds risky.”

“Amélie?”

“If it goes wrong,” she said. She turned away from the window. “You’ll end it, won’t you?”

Her brow furrowed. “That… depends on what happens.”

She kneeled over the bed and grasped Angela’s hand. “Don’t make this any more difficult than it is. Just say it. If I…” She looked down at the green carpet. “If something happens—you’ll end it.”

“If we’re certain there’s nothing else to be done, then…” She seemed reluctant. “There’s no point in making you suffer any more than necessary. There’s—I don’t even know what procedures you’d be having—I wouldn’t be able to tell you the risks until I knew. And of course you have to consent. We can’t force you to go through with it.”

“How long will it take?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. The procedures themselves—I mean, I’ve thought about it—and of course we can’t do everything at once; we need you to recover first, to stabilize… Months, at least. And then, and then there’s the question of you, and what you will do afterward, regardless of how much time you spend in the hospital, you’re going to need a life outside of it, and that—well, I’m sure you can imagine.”

“The hard part,” Amélie said.

Angela smiled. “Right. None of it will be easy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.”

She rose, and picked up Angela’s phone—the glass had cracked, but it still seemed to function—and threw it on the bed.

Angela picked it up and stared at her.

“What?”

“You want me to call?”

Amélie picked up the gun and watched her dial faster than she ever had before. She listened, not comprehending much of what was being said even though it was all in English.

Angela groaned in frustration. “They don’t know when they’ll be able to send someone. It could be three hours, or it could be a whole other day.”

“Fuck,” she said, “we’ll be dead before then. Why not?”

“Because I’m not there.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” she said, and sat on the bed. “I’m supposed to get another call when they are certain of anything, but Overwatch in its current form has never been about… timeliness, or organization.”

She frowned and put the gun down. “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?”

Angela stood up and closed the blinds in the window. “First, we should close this so Talon doesn’t see us, and then…” She looked at Amélie.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I didn’t say anything.”

She grimaced and looked away. “At least we have a gun, if nothing else.”

“So you remember,” said Angela. “That you were the one who requested for us to meet.”

She suddenly felt exhausted. “Not now, Angela.” She continued to look at the blinds, imagining the dreary scenery outside.

“You wanted this.”

She leaned against the wall and ran her fingers down the plastic. “Are you really so happy about that?”

“No…” Angela stood next to her. “But I’d appreciate the acknowledgment, at least. It wasn’t your ‘Talon conditioning’ that drove you to arrange this, after all. You did the right thing.”

“Right,” she scoffed. “If what I did doesn’t kill us both first.”

“You don’t believe they’ll reach us in time?”

“I believe that Talon’s men are competent. Your ragtag band of vigilantes is rather—”

“We get things done.”

“ _You_ get things done,” Amélie murmured. “They…” She pressed down on one of the blinds and peered through the window. Nothing but cloudy skies. “I had planned to die in the first place, so I suppose it could be worse.” Angela was standing close enough so that she could feel her body heat.

She tugged on her sleeve. “Why don’t we get away from the windows? Sit down. Have you had anything to drink today? Probably not. You should at least stay hydrated…”

Amélie sat on the bed while Angela took one the glasses and poured water from the sink. She emerged from the bathroom and slipped the glass into her hand. Her foot tapped on the carpet. She seemed restless.

“You’re nervous.”

“Well,” she said, glaring at her, “you can hardly blame me considering how our meeting started out.”

She turned away in guilt, and sipped her water. Angela looked at the clock.

“Why did you move my…” She turned to Amélie. “Are you afraid of looking at the time?”

“Don’t.”

She sighed and folded her arms. “All right, then.” She took out her phone and checked the screen, then slipped it back into her pocket. She sat on the bed, across from Amélie, and then brought her feet up onto the mattress and lay down on her side, away from her. Amélie blinked. It was a familiar sight.

“You’re going to sleep?”

“I’ve slept through worse.”

“Is that such a good idea?”

“Probably not.”

“Then…”

She rolled onto her back and looked at her. “Did you have any better ideas of how to spend the time?” She glanced at the TV. “Like watch a movie or something?”

“As if either of us would be able to pay attention to it. Would you really want to be woken up by Talon firing at us through the window?”

“I’m distracted enough with you in the room,” she said, and rolled onto her side again. “Though if you’d rather I stay awake, you’re free to stop me. And you can always wake me up if anything happens.”

Amélie sipped her water and watched, incredulous, as Angela’s breathing slowed and became regular and after finishing her drink and standing up and walking around the bed, she could indeed confirm that Angela was asleep. She looked around the room, wary of how vulnerable they both were, and wondered for one brief, delirious moment if she should lay down as well.

_Just like old times_ , she thought. For someone whose life was in imminent danger, Angela certainly looked comfortable. Amélie envied her. The doctor had not a single care in the world. She trusted Amélie, or perhaps, she didn’t care whether she lived or died and so she didn’t need her trust. Amélie put her glass down on the floor and looked at Angela’s sleeping face. Then she stared at the wall.

_Tu plaisantes!_

“Angela, are you insane?” She shrugged her awake.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Are they here yet?”

“Why are you sleeping? For God’s sake, get up!”

Angela sat up. “All right, all right.” She brushed Amélie’s arm out of the way. “What’s wrong?”

“Idiot! Are you trying to get us killed?”

“No, of course not. You were…” Angela stared at her, and then sighed and looked away. “I’m sorry. I should have known better than to leave you alone.”

She rubbed her temples, agitated. “I’m confused enough. I have no idea what the hell is going on here. For the love of God, just stay awake and sit with me.” She grabbed Angela’s wrist, and then she scowled and let go, covering her face. “ _Putain_ ,” she muttered to herself, “ _je ne suis pas prête à m’investir dans une autre relation_.”

“Amélie?”

She looked at Angela, and a stream of mangled Franglais swearing flooded through her head. She looked down and rubbed her eyes, willing the English language to come back to her when all she wanted to do was curse Angela out in French; on top of which, they were quite possibly going to die soon, and had no indication of when or how, and she had spent so long holed up in this hotel room that she had half a mind to pick Angela up and run down the emergency staircase and escape.

“Damn it, Angela,” she snapped, “let’s just get out of here.”

“What?” she asked. “Where?”

“Does it matter?” She stood up. “What the hell are we doing here? Just get Overwatch to pick you up somewhere else. We’re in—” where were they again? It was still Europe, wasn’t it— “surely you must have friends here. Anywhere is better than sitting around in a hotel room waiting for Talon to hunt us down.”

“But…” She hesitated. Good God, _why_?

Amélie grabbed her wrist and pressed it between her hands. “Look, they know I’m missing. I don’t know—I don’t know if they’ve… embedded some tracking device under my skin; I don’t know if they’ve planted a bomb in my abdominal cavity; I don’t know if they’ve been eavesdropping on all my conversations and know exactly where we are and I have no possible way out of this situation but for your intervention.” She grasped her hand. “I…” her brows drew together, hard, “you must be some kind of desperately in love with me to risk your life like this, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” said Angela, and barely had time to react before Amélie pulled her into a kiss, and Angela moaned and wrapped arms around her neck and dragged her down, and Amélie could feel the warmth of her body through her clothes—the small of her back, her buttocks, her thighs—and when they broke apart Angela was flushed and panting. “God,” she said, “I love you so much.”

They stood there, making eye contact, and Amélie could have sworn that a bullet would lodge itself in her head at any minute now, and when it didn’t she turned around and eyed the window suspiciously. “ _Allons-y_ ,” she said. “ _Maintenant_.”

“Let me just…” Angela grabbed the gun, and grabbed her briefcase, and took Amélie’s hand and they fled out the hallway down the staircase to the parking lot outside, and Amélie saw Talon agents round every corner, hiding in the alleyways and streets, ready to take aim and fire, and in front of her, Angela with the briefcase and the gun and the promise of a bright new hopeful future.

She held on tight.


End file.
